Conference Speakers

Prof. Jennifer Knight-Madden MB BS, FRCP-C, PhD

Professor Jennifer Knight-Madden is a senior academic, and former director, at the Sickle Cell Unit, Caribbean Institute for Health Research, The University of the West Indies. Professor of Pediatric Pulmonology and Clinical Research, she completed medical training at the UWI medical school and training in Pediatrics at the HSC, Toronto. She completed fellowship training in Pediatric Pulmonology at Duke University, a PhD from King’s College, London, and a Certificate in Implementation Science at the University of California-San Francisco). Her research interests include newborn screening, the pulmonary complications of sickle cell disease, health services and implementation research and clinical trials. She has published more than 70 peer reviewed articles, and several book chapters.

She is co-chair of the Sickle Cell Technical Working Group; Chair of the Advisory Panel on Ethics & Medico-Legal Affairs, MOHW; Vice President of the Caribbean Network of Researchers on Sickle Cell Disease and Thalassemia; Chair of two National Institutes of Health Data Safety Monitoring Boards for studies in Africa; Co-Chair for Sickle Cell In Focus Conferences with NIH and on the Scientific Committee for Global SCD Congresses, Chair of the Guideline Development Group for Asthma in Jamaica and on the American Society of Hematology Guideline Development Group for guidelines on the use of hydroxyurea.

She is married with two daughters, a recently demitted member of the St Andrew High School for Girls PTA Executive and Board. She is a Sunday School Teacher at Christian Life Fellowship.

Prof. Emeritus Sir Henry Fraser

Professor Emeritus Sir Henry Fraser, K.A., BSc (Physiology), MB. BS, PhD (Pharmacology) FACP, FRCP, is retired Dean of the Faculty of Medical Sciences (2001 – 2010) and Founding Director of the George Alleyne Chronic Disease Research Centre of UWI, Cave Hill (1992 – 2005). He is a medical graduate of the UWI, retired physician specialist and clinical pharmacologist. He served as a Scientific Committee member of the CCMRC and CHRC 1982 – 2005) and co-ordinated the annual banquets!

He is author or co-author of some 110 peer reviewed medical and scientific papers on medical education, hypertension, obesity, therapeutics, health of the elderly, medical history and other subjects, several hundred other papers, 700 newspaper Sunday columns, many book collections of continuing education conferences, many books on historic architecture and heritage stories, and 350 radio talks on health and cultural heritage. He started the Hypertension Clinic and Ambulatory Blood Pressure Monitoring (ABPM) at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital (QEH) in Barbados. His autobiography A Life in Medicine and the Arts is published by Canoe Press / UWI Press.

He was Public Orator, Cave Hill Campus, (1992 - 2010, and National Public Orator for Barbados until 2013. He has had parallel careers in Architectural History and Preservation, as writer, artist, public orator and TV presenter of many film series – on health and several historic series Treasures of Barbados, Pillars of Worship & Parliament 375 for CBC-TV. He is Past President of the Barbados National Trust, chaired the Task Force for Nomination of Historic Bridgetown and its Garrison as a World Heritage site, received many awards, served as Senator from 2012 to 18 and was Knighted in November 2014.

Prof. Christina W. Hoven

Dr. Christina W. Hoven is a Child Psychiatric Epidemiologist at Columbia University-New York State Psychiatric Institute, where she is a Professor of Epidemiology and Psychiatry, College of Physician and Surgeons and Mailman School of Public Health. As Director of the Global Psychiatric Epidemiology Group (GPEG), her research takes a life-course perspective, focusing on risk for and persistence of psychopathology, including needs assessment and longitudinal sequelae of exposure to violence and disaster. Major foci of her research are suicide, community probability investigations, suicidal autopsies and school-based intervention assessments. She engages in local and national capacity building through training. Her research primarily involves large-scale longitudinal, epidemiological investigations with communities of special interest, including minorities, criminal justice involved families, immigrants, and post-disaster/traumatic events, such as war and natural disaster. Professor Hoven frequently speaks to the fact that globally, girls and women carry a disproportionate, often devastating burden of discrimination. Her research and training activities have been carried out throughout the world, in more than 30 countries.

Prof. Ian Hambleton

Ian Hambleton is a biostatistician and data-handling expert with 30 years' experience across Europe, Africa, and the Caribbean. Specializing in health analytics, he has authored over 200 research articles. Ian has extensive expertise in end-to-end data solutions for resource-limited settings, providing data analytics for public health, and developing sustainable data handling frameworks. Throughout his career, Ian has led data collection, analytics, and secure online data management for numerous projects, working in partnership with overseas universities, donor agencies, and with funders including the NIH, UK-MRC, NIHR, and the Wellcome Trust.

Recent initiatives include collaborating with CARPHA and CDEMA to deliver daily COVID-19 surveillance updates for CARICOM states, generating 20+ reports each morning, distributed to regional stakeholders. He produced a 2024 PAHO flagship report on mortality and disease burden in the Americas since 2000. Ian currently leads CaribData — an IDB-funded initiative aimed at building Caribbean data infrastructure, providing training, and promoting data sharing through storytelling.

Ian joined the Sickle Cell Unit, The University of the West Indies, in Jamaica in 1996, spending 10-years on the Mona campus before moving to the George Alleyne Chronic Disease Research Centre at the Cave Hill campus in Barbados in 2006. He holds degrees in Mathematics, Medical Statistics, and Statistical Epidemiology, and he is currently a Professor of Biostatistics at the University of the West Indies.

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